There are various administration tools for managing complex computer applications. Some of these tools are realized as an aggregate of many distinct management applications. These management applications can also be called plug-ins or modules. Each management application offers a visual interface for management of some dedicated scope of a complex computer application. For example a user utilizes a first management application to monitor a complex computer application, a second management application to configure a complex computer application, a third management application to administer a complex computer application, a forth management application to diagnose a complex computer application, etc.
Usually, at any point of time, only one of these management applications is visible to the user. A common user scenario for working with an aggregated administration tool includes managing entities within several management applications. An entity, in the context of a management application, is a part of the system that is managed utilizing the management application. For example an entity may be a service or an application, and the user may use one management application to start the application and another management application to view the logs for the same application. During the navigation between the management applications it can be desirable to keep information for the selected managed entities. For example, there is usually a special framework between the administration tool and the management applications that is used for keeping the managed entities. Before exiting, a management application passes the managed entities context information to the framework. When a navigation target management application is started, it can read entity information from the framework. The framework thus serves as a mediator between the management applications.
The context passing mechanism described above works adequately when the management applications use the same managed entities. However, when management applications work with different managed entities, the managed context will be lost. This loss prevents users from building complex management scenarios using this basic framework mediator approach.